Age prevails over weight in youth football league

Friday

Aug 1, 2014 at 9:30 PMAug 2, 2014 at 3:02 PM

By Brett Poirierbpoirier@norwichbulletin.com

JEWETT CITY — Nolan Webster’s first year in football pads ultimately led him away from the game.

“My son, when he was playing his first year at tackle, he was up against kids that were physically his size, but mentally much more advanced with the game of football,” Dan Webster said. “So, his first year in pads, he was getting his bell rung.”

A 7-year-old Nolan was often matched up with players three or four years older than him because the Southern New England Youth Football Conference used weight as the main factor in forming divisions.

The next year Nolan chose fall baseball.

At Griswold’s first day of practice on Friday, Nolan was back playing football for Griswold.

A major conference rule change made it happen. In April, the SNEYFC board, led by president John Taylor, passed new by-laws to switch to an age-based system to form teams.

The conference did away with using weight as a component and shed its old division titles — Senior, Junior and Micro A-C — in favor of 8-U, 10-U, 12-U and 14-U.

“The national trend is going toward the age divisions where kids are grouped according to their own maturity level rather than having them play some of the older kids because of their weight,” Taylor said.

The age versus weight dilemma is nothing new in youth football.

Each way of dividing players comes with drawbacks. Grouping players by age means greater differential in player sizes. Dividing players by weight leaves larger contrasts in age and maturity.

From the inception of the SNEYFC, players were divided by a combination of weight and age, meaning a player could compete at his age level provided he or she wasn’t over a certain weight.

Not all 11-year-olds are built the same, though, so younger players who didn’t fit the mold were often forced to play up.

“Having a younger kid who is heavier have to play up a division, that was a big problem and a worry for a lot of people,” Taylor said. “And it was becoming more prevalent as the years go by.”

That’s why Taylor and other conference officials began working on drastic changes at the end of last season. This season players will be separated by age only.

Pop Warner, the nation’s biggest youth football governing body, still uses an age/weight formula to form its teams, but many conferences have decided that the age-based system works best. That includes the Northern Connecticut Football Conference, home to Colchester and Woodstock-Putnam-Thompson-Pomfret.

USA Football agrees. It published an article in 2011 stating, that “a young athlete’s size is a less accurate indicator of maturity than is a player’s age and coordination, which creates strength and power. Older but lighter youth football players have a greater ability to create force because of their physical maturity, a key factor behind USA Football’s support of age-based play.”

SNEYFC treasurer and Griswold 12-U coach Ted Koziol said younger players playing up wasn’t the only need for a change. He said that under the old system, too many players were at the second-highest level, the Junior program. Meanwhile, Griswold couldn’t field a Senior team last season, two years after it won the Senior Super Bowl.

The Junior program held standards of ages 13 and under with a maximum weight of 120 pounds. The new second tier, 12-U, will only take players 12 and under with no weight requirement. Players who would’ve been in position to play as older Juniors in the past, will play in the top division, 14-U, this season.

With the bigger differential in weights within each division, the conference implemented weight rules regarding the skill positions. Skill position players must be 150 pounds or lighter in 14-U; 115 pounds or lighter in 12-U; 100 pounds or lighter in 10-U and 85 pounds or lighter in 8-U.

Plainfield president Chris Kelley said his league will identify non-skill players by giving them jersey numbers above 50 or by putting a mark on the player’s helmet.

Each league’s lower divisions may have been most impacted. In-house tackle football leagues with varying player ages is a thing of the past. The third-tier Micro A’s traveled with the Senior and Junior teams last year, while Micro B and C players stayed home each week. This year, all divisions will travel and they all will play for SNEYFC Super Bowl titles.

The disparity in ages between younger players also was lessened. Only 7- and 8-year-olds will play in 8-U for example.

“Now, we just have a one-year age gap, which is great because it doesn’t turn kids off to the game of football and also helps them mentally to know they are playing against kids their own age,” Koziol said.

Montville Youth Football, which has seen registration numbers dwindle in recent years, reported a 30-percent spike in early registrations, according to president Dave Jarry. He credited the increase to the conference rule change and Montville joining USA Football’s Heads Up Program.

The rule change is what brought Nolan back.

“When he heard they were going back to the age-based (system), he wanted to come back to football,” Dan Webster said.

“I think it was a no-brainer,” he added about the rule change. “He wanted to come back to football and I felt a lot better about it being 10-U.”

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